New Releases by Greg Egan

Paolo Bacigalupi, Terry Bisson, Jean-Claude Dunyach, Greg Egan, Yves Frémion, Laurent Genefort, Nancy Kress, Sylvie Lainé, Wildy Petoud, Lisa Tuttle... ... sont les Architectes du vertige. Cinquante années de Grand Prix de l’Imaginaire. Dix textes sélectionnés parmi les lauréats du plus prestigieux des prix littéraires dédiés à la science-fiction, au fantastique et à la fantasy. Dix récits du vertige et de l’émerveillement. Une anthologie anniversaire au faîte d’un monument.

In a world where the cells that make up our bodies are not committed to any one organism, Marla is confronted by the fickleness of her cytes, and resolves to understand them with help from Ada, a centuries-old Flourisher. Swappers like Ruth embrace fluidity, and meet with others to exchange cytes, seeking the perfect mix. But Ruth faces her own crisis, and as the technology to manipulate cytes advances, all three are drawn into a struggle to shape the future of life.

Lorsqu’elle ouvre les yeux, elle n’a aucune idée de l’endroit où elle se trouve. Une grotte ? Comment est-elle arrivée là, quand, et pour quelle raison ? Impossible de le dire non plus... D’ailleurs, elle ignore même qui elle est. Mais quelque chose ici ne tourne pas rond. De cela, au moins, elle est certaine. Car aussi étrange que cela puisse sembler, son environnement lui apparaît comme... penché. Et très vite, une autre certitude grandit en elle : il ne faut pas rester dans les parages... Instanciations, qui réunit trois récits formant un tout cohérent, explore les limites et enjeux de la vie sous forme digitale – une problématique aux ramifications vertigineuses.

Phoresis and Other Journeys contains three novellas from Hugo Award-winning author Greg Egan. • “The Four Thousand, the Eight Hundred”: civil war in an asteroid colony sees refugees fleeing, by any means possible. • “Dispersion”: a world where all life is divided into six cyclically invisible and intangible groups faces a terrifying new disease. • “Phoresis”: the inhabitants of a double planet embark on an epic, multi-generational project to cross between the twin worlds.

When electronics importer Cara Leon goes missing, private investigator Sam Mujrif is hired by her sister to investigate. Cara is eight times taller than Sam, but evidence soon points to players much smaller than either of them. As Sam and his cross-scale colleagues pursue the case, it becomes apparent that Cara’s disappearance is linked to the development of technology with the potential to reshape their whole society, and radically alter the balance of power between the scales.

Fantascienza - racconto lungo (45 pagine) - Come trovare soluzioni bizzarre per sbarcare il lunario quando sei stato reso obsoleto da un''intelligenza artificiale. Dan, il protagonista della storia, è un giovane australiano sposato e con una figlia piccola che viene licenziato in tronco dalla società dove lavora come consulente finanziario e addetto al recupero crediti. La società non gli offre nessuna spiegazione, nonostante l’ottimo lavoro da lui svolto nel corso del tempo. Dan sospetta che la ditta abbia dato in outsourcing il suo lavoro a qualche tipo di macchina o intelligenza artificiale. Il giovane si guarda un po’ in giro alla ricerca di qualche lavoretto con cui sopravvivere e pagare le rate del mutuo della casa, ma riesce solo a scoprire che non è il solo a trovarsi in una situazione di questo genere. Quello che tuttavia non torna e lascia Dan assai perplesso sono le bizzarre soluzioni con cui molti amici si ritrovano a convivere, come ad esempio scrivere romanzi pornografici per un unico cliente, peraltro mai visto o conosciuto. Egan questa volta non offre una storia basata su complessi algoritmi matematici. Mostrandosi autore vario e multiforme racconta una ironica, intrigante versione del conflitto tra uomo e macchina, da sempre al centro dell’attenzione degli scrittori di fantascienza. A differenza dei futuri catastrofici spesso immaginati da autori come Harlan Ellison (Non ho bocca e devo urlare), delle rivolte dei robot o della dominazione da parte di computer ultrapotenti, Egan propone una visione riflessiva e in fondo più speranzosa delle problematiche causate dall’automazione nel mondo del lavoro e nella vita della razza umana. Questo Il fascino discreto della macchina di Turing (The Discrete Charm of the Turing Machine), uscito su Isaac Asimov SF Magazine nel 2017, è stato candidato al premio Locus e a tutti i più importanti riconoscimenti fantascientifici dell’anno. Greg Egan è uno dei più autorevoli scrittori di fantascienza hard. Le sue opere, uniche e inconfondibili, sono spesso basate su teorie scientifiche d''avanguardia. Nato a Perth, in Australia, nel 1961, laureato in matematica, ha vinto il Premio Hugo e il Premio Locus con il romanzo breve Oceanic (1999, Delos Books) e il John Campbell Memorial con Permutation City (1995). Diversi altri suoi racconti sono arrivati in finale al premio Hugo, incluso Alone (Glory, 2007), uscito sulla collana Robotica della Delos Books. Egan è una delle personalità più sfuggenti della storia della fantascienza: non ha mai partecipato a una premiazione o a una convention, e di lui non esistono fotografie. Tra i suoi romanzi più famosi, oltre al già citato Permutation City (Shake), ricordiamo La terra moltiplicata (Nord), Diaspora (Urania), Distress (Urania), La scala di Schild (Urania). Notevoli anche le antologie Axiomatic e Luminous, entrambe uscite su Urania. Questo Interi oscuri (Dark Integers, 2007) è giunto terzo al premio Locus ed è stato nominato per il premio Hugo.

Les Indifférents sont une énigme. Nichés dans le bulbe galactique central, ils refusent tout contact avec la méta-civilisation de l’Amalgame et ses milliers de cultures extraterrestres ou posthumaines. Les messages qui leur sont adressés demeurent sans réponse, les sondes ignorées, réexpédiées. Un mystère que Leila et Jasim, comme bien d’autres avant eux, font vœu de percer, une entreprise grandiose, le point d’orgue d’une existence tissée de merveilles. Alors seulement, après dix mille trois cent neuf années de vie commune, leur restera le dernier des partages, l’ultime voyage – enfin.

Fantascienza - romanzo breve (73 pagine) - Da Greg Egan, autore di Oceanic e vincitore del Premio Hugo, un thriller spaziale che affronta temi attualissimi. Camille è chiusa nel suo bozzolo. Una bara metallica poco più grande del suo stesso corpo, ancorata a una roccia che viaggia nello spazio in direzione di Cerere. È il modo in cui i rappresentanti dell''organizzazione chiamata Giusta Parte hanno dovuto scegliere per fuggire dalla loro casa, da Vesta, dopo che le cose si sono messe al peggio. Qualcuno ce l''ha fatta. Altri sono ancora in viaggio, e i loro nemici sono decisi a impedirgli di arrivare in salvo. Gli abitanti di Cerere si vantano della loro democrazia e della loro libertà, ma sono davvero al riparo dal pericolo che anche da loro possa accadere ciò che è accaduto su Vesta? Greg Egan è uno dei più autorevoli scrittori di fantascienza hard. Le sue opere, uniche e inconfondibili, sono spesso basate su teorie scientifiche d''avanguardia. Nato a Perth, in Australia, nel 1961, laureato in matematica, ha vinto il Premio Hugo e il Premio Locus con il romanzo breve Oceanic (1999, Delos Books) e il John Campbell Memorial con Permutation City (1995). Diversi altri suoi racconti sono arrivati in finale al premio Hugo, incluso Alone (Glory, 2007), uscito sulla collana Robotica di Delos Digital. Egan è una delle personalità più sfuggenti della storia della fantascienza: non ha mai partecipato a una premiazione o a una convention, e di lui non esistono fotografie. Tra i suoi romanzi più famosi, oltre al già citato Permutation City (Shake), ricordiamo La terra moltiplicata (Nord), Diaspora (Urania), Distress (Urania), La scala di Schild (Urania). Notevoli anche le antologie Axiomatic e Luminous, entrambe uscite su Urania.

Greg Egan is arguably Australia''s greatest living science fiction writer. In a career spanning more than thirty years, he has produced a steady stream of novels and stories that address a wide range of scientific and philosophical concerns: artificial intelligence, higher mathematics, science vs religion, the nature of consciousness, and the impact of technology on the human personality. All these ideas and more find their way into this generous and illuminating collection, the clear product of a man who is both a master storyteller and a rigorous, exploratory thinker. The Best of Greg Egan contains twenty stories and novellas arranged in chronological order, and each of them is a brilliantly conceived, painstakingly developed gem, including the Hugo Award-winning novella "Oceanic", a powerful account of a boy whose deeply held religious beliefs are undermined by what he comes to learn about the laws of the physical world. This book really does represent the best of Greg Egan, and it therefore takes its place among the best of contemporary SF. Startling, intelligent and always hugely entertaining, it provides an ideal introduction to one of the most accomplished and original writers working today. This is an important and provocative collection, and it deserves a place on the serious science fiction reader''s permanent shelf.

Fantascienza - romanzo breve (59 pagine) - Può esistere un altro universo, parallelo al nostro, dove la matematica ha leggi diverse? Romanzo breve finalista Premio Hugo Bruno, Alison, e Yuen sono in contatto da anni con i matematici di una Terra parallela dove esistono assiomi e leggi della matematica differenti da quelli che regolano la nostra esistenza: un universo fondato sugli “interi oscuri”, numeri anomali che la nostra scienza non è in grado di spiegare, come avviene per la “materia oscura” presente nel cosmo e al di fuori delle teorie da noi accettate. I tre studiosi comunicano con “Sam”, un esperto analogo dell’altro lato, e sono riusciti per molto tempo a mantenere uno stato di pace tra i due mondi, anche se dall’altra parte nulla è mai stato condiviso in termini di conoscenza. La trasparenza e sincerità dei nostri eroi viene tuttavia messa in pericolo dall’intervento di un nuovo fattore: un fisico australiano spinto da una straripante ambizione, che viene a scoprire l’esistenza dell’universo parallelo e a intromettersi in un gioco assai più grande di lui. Riusciranno i tre studiosi a salvare la Terra e i buoni rapporti con gli abitanti del “lato oscuro”? Un racconto di “hard sf” di straordinaria intensità, che ribadisce ancora una volta l’originalità di un grande scrittore dei nostri tempi. Greg Egan è uno dei più autorevoli scrittori di fantascienza hard. Le sue opere, uniche e inconfondibili, sono spesso basate su teorie scientifiche d''avanguardia. Nato a Perth, in Australia, nel 1961, laureato in matematica, ha vinto il Premio Hugo e il Premio Locus con il romanzo breve Oceanic (1999, Delos Books) e il John Campbell Memorial con Permutation City (1995). Diversi altri suoi racconti sono arrivati in finale al premio Hugo, incluso Alone (Glory, 2007), uscito sulla collana Robotica della Delos Books. Egan è una delle personalità più sfuggenti della storia della fantascienza: non ha mai partecipato a una premiazione o a una convention, e di lui non esistono fotografie. Tra i suoi romanzi più famosi, oltre al già citato Permutation City (Shake), ricordiamo La terra moltiplicata (Nord), Diaspora (Urania), Distress (Urania), La scala di Schild (Urania). Notevoli anche le antologie Axiomatic e Luminous, entrambe uscite su Urania. Questo Interi oscuri (Dark Integers, 2007) è giunto terzo al premio Locus ed è stato nominato per il premio Hugo.

An unabridged collection spotlighting the best hard science fiction stories published in 2019 by current and emerging masters of the genre, edited by Allan Kaster. A coastal restoration researcher can help the police solve a murder but is conflicted over the unjust nature of the criminal justice system in "Soft Edges," by Elizabeth Bear. In "By the Warmth of Their Calculus," by Tobias S. Buckell, the captain of a dustship musters her crew to escape from a trap set by Hunter-Killers in a game of cat and mouse amid the rings of a giant planet. An arachnipede becomes wary of potential mates after she sees a male eat her mother . . . but she''s lonely in "A Mate Not a Meal," by Sarina Dorie. In "The Slipway," by Greg Egan, astronomers are hard-pressed to explain what appears to be a new cluster of stars that''s growing by the hour. Abandoned at a lunar base after losing radio contact with Earth, a newlywed traverses the moon in a buggy with her newborn toward a skyhook on the farside in "This is Not the Way Home," also by Greg Egan. In "Cloud-Born" by Gregory Feeley, children born on a ship from Earth become anxious as they begin to transition to their new lives as colonists of Neptune. An astrobiology postdoc is called at the last minute to remotely navigate a robot searching for hydrogen-based life on Titan in "On the Shores of Ligeia," by Carolyn Ives Gilman. In "Ring Wave," by Tom Jolly, an engineer in a life pod is desperate to join a colony in space after an asteroid destroys Earth. A deep-sea mining company''s operation is threatened by a crustacean scientist in "The Little Shepherdess," by Gwyneth Jones. In "Sacrificial Iron," by Ted Kosmatka, a decades long mission to another star is threatened when the two men keeping watch over a frozen crew turn on each other. A teenager seeks to maintain her "Captain" status among her non-traditional lunar family by leading her siblings on a dangerous trek to Neil Armstrong''s first footprint on the moon in "The Menace from Farside," by Ian McDonald. In "The Ocean Between the Leaves," by Ray Nayler, the mind of a dying gardener is transferred to another body for three days of closure in a state-run experiment. A robot strives to maintain its energy reserves as it crosses thousands of kilometers underwater to find its way home in "At the Fall," by Alec Nevala-Lee. In "Winter Wheat," by Gord Sellar, a Canadian farmer and his son are at odds on how to cope with a powerful agribusiness promoting its genetically modified wheat. And finally, a resentful submarine pilot is ordered to an undersea research facility to assist with the mining survey of a formerly protected seabed in "Cyclopterus," by Peter Watts.

Instantiation is a collection of 11 stories by the Hugo award winning author Greg Egan: “The Discrete Charm of the Turing Machine” “Zero For Conduct” “Uncanny Valley” “Seventh Sight” “The Nearest” “Shadow Flock” “Bit Players” “Break My Fall” “3-adica” “The Slipway” “Instantiation”

An unabridged collection spotlighting the "best of the best" hard science fiction stories published in 2018 by current and emerging masters of the genre, edited by Allan Kaster. In "3-adica," by Greg Egan, sentient characters in an online multiplayer game hack the operating systems of their host machines to escape to a refuge that''s only rumored to exist. Struggling colonists, on a world subject to periodic bursts of radiation from its primary''s UV-emitting companion, go on an expedition to recover a critical package from Earth in "Umbernight," by Carolyn Ives Gilman. In "Icefall," by Stephanie Gunn, the Mountain on the planet, Icefall, holds the mystery to a lost colony and is an irresistible, fatal allure to the climbers of the universe; but no one ever returns from the Mountain. A mother seeks revenge on the doctor that changed her neuro-atypical son''s personality with a deep brain stimulation implant in "The Woman Who Destroyed Us," by S.L. Huang. In "Entropy War," by Yoon Ha Lee, a conquering alien race at the height of their powers, retreats into an arkworld to win the ultimate war in the only way they can. An AI piloting an island-ship, that used to be the Earth, struggles to make sense of the universe as the last stars are dying out in "Cosmic Spring," by Ken Liu. In "Nothing Ever Happens on Oberon," by Paul McAuley, set in the author''s Quiet War universe, a supervisor of a mining operation on the moon, Oberon, investigates the crash-landing of an ancient escape pod. In depression-era Alaska, a desperate bush pilot reluctantly accepts an illegal charter from a pair of scientists investigating a legendary mirage in Glacier National Park in "The Spires," by Alec Nevala-Lee. In "Providence," by Alastair Reynolds, the crew of a crippled starship, unable to complete its mission, decides to salvage its expedition by providing future exploratory ships with data they did not have. A disillusioned crèche manager leaves Luna to work on an asteroid-based crèche and then must decide whether or not to return to Luna in "Intervention," by Kelly Robson. And finally, an entity that controls the solar system wants aid against another entity from a reconstructed human it just created, in "Kindred," by Peter Watts.

From the award-winning author Greg Egan comes a Tor.com Original sci-fi short story, "Zeitgeber" For millions of years, life on Earth has taken its cues from the rising and setting of the sun, and for most of human history we''ve followed the same rhythm. But if that shared connection was broken, and we each fell under the sway of our own private clock, could we still hold our lives together? One family is about to find out. At the Publisher''s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

New anthology from the critically-acclaimed editor of Engineering Infinity - Winner of Best Anthology, 2019 Aurealis Awards Houston, we have a problem... Life is fragile. The difference between success and failure can come down to nothing – the thread of a screw, the flick of a switch – and when it goes wrong, you fix it... or someone dies. Mission Critical takes us from our world, across the Solar System, and out into deep space to tell the stories of people who had to do the impossible. And do it fast. Featuring stories by Peter F. Hamilton, Yoon Ha Lee, Aliette de Bodard, Greg Egan, Linda Nagata, Gregory Feeley, John Barnes, Tobias S. Buckell, Jason Fischer & Sean Williams, Carolyn Ives Gilman, John Meaney, Dominica Phetteplace, Allen M. Steele, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, and Peter Watts.

Greg Egan''s Perihelion Summer is a story of people struggling to adapt to a suddenly alien environment, and the friendships and alliances they forge as they try to find their way in a world where the old maps have lost their meaning. Taraxippus is coming: a black hole one tenth the mass of the sun is about to enter the solar system. Matt and his friends are taking no chances. They board a mobile aquaculture rig, the Mandjet, self-sustaining in food, power and fresh water, and decide to sit out the encounter off-shore. As Taraxippus draws nearer, new observations throw the original predictions for its trajectory into doubt, and by the time it leaves the solar system, the conditions of life across the globe will be changed forever. Praise for Perihelion Summer “Egan here doubles down on climate change with his typically rigorous exploration of a cosmic accident’s effect on Earth and all its people. His characters are sharp and funny and their courageous response to the massive challenge they face works as a spur to cause us to think—why couldn’t we do as well with our own great challenge? This is what the best science fiction can do that no other genre can, and we need it now more than ever. Bravo!” — Kim Stanley Robinson At the Publisher''s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

When a detective, a new mother, is assigned to the case of a horrific triple murder, it appears to be a self-contained domestic tragedy, a terrible event but something that doesn’t affect the rest of the community. But it slowly becomes clear that something much darker may be at play, something that spreads out from the scene of the crime to corrode the closest relationships of everyone it touches, in Greg Egan''s The Nearest, a Tor.com Original. At the Publisher''s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Science fiction is a portal that opens doors onto futures too rich and strange to imagine. Fantasy takes us through doorways of magic and wonder. For more than a decade award-winning editor Jonathan Strahan has sifted through tens of thousands of stories to select the best, the most interesting, the most engaging science fiction and fantasy to thrill and delight readers. Featuring stories from Daniel Abraham, Charlie Jane Anders, Kelly Barnhill, R. S. Benedict, Tobias Buckell, Indrapramit Das, Samuel R. Delany, Greg Egan, Max Gladstone, Theodora Goss, Saad Z. Hossain, Dave Hutchinson, Kathleen Kayembe, Caitlin R Kiernan, Mary Robinette Kowal, Rich Larson, Yoon Ha Lee, Scott Lynch, Maureen McHugh, Khaalidah Muhammad-Ali, Linda Nagata, Suzanne Palmer, Vina Jie-Min Prasad, Alastair Reynolds, Karl Schroeder, Nick Wolven and Caroline M. Yoachim.

Debout dans la salle de bain, Adam récita l’incantation griffonnée sur la serviette en papier, s’attendant presque à voir quelque apparition au regard mauvais prendre sa place dans la glace une fois la dernière syllabe prononcée. Dans son cou, la clapet se courba puis se détacha dans un petit bruit sec. Adam se saisit de la plaque de peau avant qu’elle ne tombe et la déposa sur une feuille d’essuie-tout bien propre. Il avait du mal à voir l’intérieur de l’ouverture, tout en n’étant pas certain de le vouloir véritablement, mais il trouva le port au toucher sans souci. Il retourna dans la chambre, prit la carte mémoire sur la table de nuit avant de s’allonger, prenant soin de baisser l’intensité des lumières. [...] Adam positionna la carte mémoire. Greg Egan La Vallée de l’étrange

Immortality, but at what price, in what form, and how could you be you? Find out in Greg Egan''s "Uncanny Valley," a Tor.com Original short story In the near future it’s possible to build a new you, a better you, one that could carry on forever. But if you could carry on, if you could make choices about who you would be forever, how much of your past would you bring with you? Would you be tempted to maybe...edit? Adam isn’t all that he used to be, but he wants to be. At the Publisher''s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Seth is a surveyor, along with his friend Theo, a leech-like creature running through his skull who tells Seth what lies to his left and right. Theo, in turn, relies on Seth for mobility, and for ordinary vision looking forwards and backwards. Like everyone else in their world, they are symbionts, depending on each other to survive. In the universe containing Seth''s world, light cannot travel in all directions: there is a “dark cone” to the north and south. Seth can only face to the east (or the west, if he tips his head backwards). If he starts to turn to the north or south, his body stretches out across the landscape, and to rotate as far as north-north-east is every bit as impossible as accelerating to the speed of light. Every living thing in Seth’s world is in a state of perpetual migration as they follow the sun’s shifting orbit and the narrow habitable zone it creates. Cities are being constantly disassembled at one edge and rebuilt at the other, with surveyors mapping safe routes ahead. But when Seth and Theo join an expedition to the edge of the habitable zone, they discover a terrifying threat: a fissure in the surface of the world, so deep and wide that no one can perceive its limits. As the habitable zone continues to move, the migration will soon be blocked by this unbridgeable void, and the expedition has only one option to save its city from annihilation: descend into the unknown.

The complete Orthogonal Trilogy by Greg Egan. Containing The Clockwork Rocket, The Eternal Flame, and The Arrows of Time.

Der Traum eines Gottes In ferner Zukunft ist Unsterblichkeit nicht mehr unmöglich. Der menschliche Verstand kann gescannt und in eine künstliche Umgebung einprogrammiert werden. Das Ergebnis: Die „Kopien“, künstliche Menschen mit denselben Erinnerungen und Gefühlen wie ihre Vorbilder – jedoch abhängig von einem Computersystem. Paul Durham träumt von einer Zufluchtsstätte, einer Stadt für die „Kopien“, in der sie sicher und eigenständig leben können. Seine Vision könnte das ganze Universum verändern: Raum, Zeit, Materie und Evolution ...

Nachdem die Sterne erloschen sind ... Am 24. November 2034 geschieht das Unfassbare: Eine riesige Barriere legt sich um unser Sonnensystem, und die Sterne erlöschen. Wir schreiben das Jahr 2068: Für den Privatdetektiv Nick Stavrianos ist der sternenlose Himmel bereits eine Alltäglichkeit geworden. Außerdem hat er andere Sorgen: Er muss die junge Laura finden, ein Mädchen, das trotz einer schweren Gehirnschädigung aus einem Pflegeheim entwischt ist. Die Spur führt nach Hongkong, ins Zentrum der Genforschung. Doch bevor er Laura findet, wird Nick selbst gefangengenommen und von skrupellosen Forschern programmiert. Und dann erkennt er, dass zwischen dem verschwundenen Mädchen und der Barriere ein unglaublicher Zusammenhang besteht ...

Après avoir consacré notre dernière numéro à Stephen King, maître incontesté des littératures de genre outre-Atlantique, la logique voulait que nous retournions dans l''Hexagone pour aborder une œuvre qui, par bien des aspects, pourrait être le pendant français de celle de l''auteur américain. En effet, les parallèles sont nombreux entre Pierre Pelot et Stephen King (outre le fait qu''ils appartiennent à la même génération). Les deux œuvres sont énormes de qualité et de quantité. Chacune s''inscrit dans une géographie physique très délimitée (le Maine pour King, les Vosges pour Pelot). Elles ont longtemps été méprisées par la critique avant d''être portées au nu. Toutes deux, enfin, mélangent les genres, font fi des classifications, sans jamais pour auteur que leur auteur respectif ne renie le terreau populaire sur lequel elles s''épanouissent...Pierre Pelot est né le 13 novembre 1945. Il est l''auteur d''environ deux-cents romans qui visitent tous les genres ou presque (science-fiction surtout, mais aussi polar, western, fantastique, préhistorique - Sous le vent du monde, avec Yves Coppens). Ses dernières années, la plupart de ses romans sont parus hors genre dans des collections et chez des éditeurs généralistes. Au rang de ses réussites les plus manifestes, on citera La Forêt muette, C''est ainsi que les hommes vivent, La Guerre olympique, Delirum Circus, Brouillards, L''Eté en pente douce (adapté au cinéma par Gérard Krawczyk en 1987), Transit ou Natural Killer...

First published in Asimov''s Science Fiction, December 2015.

An unabridged collection of the “best of the best” science fiction stories published in 2013 by current and emerging masters of the genre, edited by Allan Kaster. In “Zero for Conduct,” by Greg Egan, an Afghani teenager, living in a near-future Iran with her exiled grandfather, makes a game-changing superconductor discovery. A young girl struggles to survive on a planet, with a stringent class structure, where Doors are used to go off-world in “Exit, Interrupted,” by C. W. Johnson. “Pathways” by Nancy Kress, follows a teenage girl from a small Kentucky mountain town, in a near-future U. S., struggling with her family and culture as she seeks treatment for Fatal Familial Insomnia. In “Entangled,” by Ian R. MacLeod, an Indian woman, in a Britain turned upside down by a disease that links people’s minds, searches for answers to her personal catastrophe. In “The Irish Astronaut,” by Val Nolan, a colleague brings the ashes of an astronaut, who died in the Aquariusdisaster, to Ireland for final burial. In “Among Us,” by Robert Reed, a government agency goes to extraordinary lengths to identify and track the aliens among us. “A Map of Mercury,” by Alastair Reynolds, showcases the plight of a failed artist dispatched to retrieve an artistic genius from a collective of cyborgs parading across the face of Mercury. In “Martian Blood,” by Allen M. Steele, a researcher from Earth goes on an expedition into the untamed regions of Mars to extract blood from its natives. “The She-Wolf’s Hidden Grin,” by Michael Swanwick, set in the same milieu as Gene Wolfe’s “The Fifth Head of Cerberus,” follows the childhoods of two sisters on a planet far from Earth. Finally, in “The Best We Can,” by Carrie Vaughn, a frustrated scientist pursues first contact among an apathetic populace.